(1) 100% culture. Develop a sweet XC course at home and invite high schools. 100% to bring in kids to a good experience. The Track program used to have a high school meet at Jesse Owens--it was a great meet. What happened to it??

(2)When your top 2 famous alumni are coaching at different schools, you have no culture with alumni = no chance.

(3) OSU is all about culture in other sports.

(4) They need to HIRE a decently famous alumni or famous runner- maybe someone like RITZ or Jason Hartman- to come in and change the culture. Until that happens they have no chance. Both of these guys are assistant coaches. They are at much better programs- Grand Valley State and Saginaw Valley State in Michigan. Both of these programs would shut out OSU in a dual meet in XC. I actually believe 100% that GVSU -JV team would be OSU in a dual meet.

(5) 100% recruit in state talent and get top tier guys every year.

(6) They need to establish a walk on program that encourages guys to stay in state. Get the 9:30-9:50 guys that are developing 3200 runners or the 15:50-16:20 guys in XC to come and walk on and train for 4 years. If you get 10-25 of these guys 2-5 will develop into 14:30 guys in 4 years.
I am sure that they have 100 guys walking around campus right now that ran 16:20 in high school.

(7) Establish a program that every Ohio kid dreams about going to. Right now it is everything but OSU. Iowa State, Indiana, Notre Dame, etc are taking our talent. Lebron James factor. It is not like Stanford, Oregon and Colorado are taking our boys. These decent programs are taking our boys. Why? Taking their talent elsewhere...

(1) 100% culture. Develop a sweet XC course at home and invite high schools. 100% to bring in kids to a good experience. The Track program used to have a high school meet at Jesse Owens--it was a great meet. What happened to it??

(2)When your top 2 famous alumni are coaching at different schools, you have no culture with alumni = no chance.

(3) OSU is all about culture in other sports.

(4) They need to HIRE a decently famous alumni or famous runner- maybe someone like RITZ or Jason Hartman- to come in and change the culture. Until that happens they have no chance. Both of these guys are assistant coaches. They are at much better programs- Grand Valley State and Saginaw Valley State in Michigan. Both of these programs would shut out OSU in a dual meet in XC. I actually believe 100% that GVSU -JV team would be OSU in a dual meet.

(5) 100% recruit in state talent and get top tier guys every year.

(6) They need to establish a walk on program that encourages guys to stay in state. Get the 9:30-9:50 guys that are developing 3200 runners or the 15:50-16:20 guys in XC to come and walk on and train for 4 years. If you get 10-25 of these guys 2-5 will develop into 14:30 guys in 4 years.
I am sure that they have 100 guys walking around campus right now that ran 16:20 in high school.

(7) Establish a program that every Ohio kid dreams about going to. Right now it is everything but OSU. Iowa State, Indiana, Notre Dame, etc are taking our talent. Lebron James factor. It is not like Stanford, Oregon and Colorado are taking our boys. These decent programs are taking our boys. Why? Taking their talent elsewhere...

1) Don't disagree this could all be helpful, but the OSU women placed their 7th runner in the top 50 without this.

2) I have no idea how much OSU T&F/XC tries to keep alumni involved, but I would think few of them on the men's side, especially distance, have had an experience that would encourage them to come back.

3) Agreed. It's no fluke that Michigan is doing well with Kevin Sullivan at the helm.

4) There have been so few great OSU male distance runners that finding one who wants to coach and has the right skill set will be tough just from a numbers standpoint - this includes working with Karen Denis as your boss.

5) Robert Gary recruited in-state hard, but never bothered trying to attract top national talent. I think BOTH are required if you want to be a Tier 1 team.

6) I don't think there's much wiggle room here for the athletic department. It is common practice among most major universities to put strict roster limits on men's sports to avoid even the slightest hint of a Title IX problem. There is a club team at OSU, but I don't think the athletic department can be involved with it.

Let's face it the guys running for OSU now were very good high school runners in the state of Ohio. Alone they weren't ever going to win Big Tens unless a minor miracle occurred, even if Elswick had stayed. To win at the Big Ten level consistently you need very good in-state talent as well as at several Footlocker-Finalist types.

Nearly every Big 10 team emphasizes some event areas over others. Clearly OSU has had success in Track and Field without scoring significant points in distance events. That is probably by design. Turning around the guys distance program would require a lot of resources that would probably yield better results in other event groups. It sucks that be a fan of distance running in Ohio and to see all the talent that is here in HS go away, but I don't see it changing without a massive overall of the T&F program and there aren't enough issues in the whole program to motivate that type of change.

I have admitted before that I am a Michigan grad, but I would still like to see OSU finish in at least the top half the field every year. I have lived in Ohio far longer than I lived in Michigan.

Title IX...my, how it has ruined the "lesser" men's sports at the college and university level. The bastions of liberalism (aka. academic institutions) around the country will never admit this but it's sad and true.

Title IX...my, how it has ruined the "lesser" men's sports at the college and university level. The bastions of liberalism (aka. academic institutions) around the country will never admit this but it's sad and true.

Title IX It's the common excuse, when the real answer is; some schools don't care about certain sport.

Title IX...my, how it has ruined the "lesser" men's sports at the college and university level. The bastions of liberalism (aka. academic institutions) around the country will never admit this but it's sad and true.

Over the last three decades overall participation numbers are up,not down. Letís just look at XC and track:

(Note: The number of menís teams is also up considerably if you only count D1 programs as well. 256 to 311 in XC and 230 to 278 in TF.)

The real reason for the decline in menís sports teams at some schools is D1 football. It is a giant budget hole most schools. Particularly in the MAC. When the football teams are costing millions of dollars per year to operate, athletic budgets have to be trimmed. And that trimming sometimes comes in the form of cutting teams. If you look at the D3 level you don't see schools abandoning many sports teams. And it is pretty rare for a school to get rid of a men's team in a sport where they have a women's team.

Remember Stifel was at best the 3rd best runner on his high school team. If OSU is counting on him—we are in big trouble.

I think the questioner was wondering why Stifel did not run, as he was OSU's first man, and finished 7th overall in 2016. He was hurt in the spring and had surgery (knee?). Performed fairly well at Pre-nats, so it is a bit of a mystery as to why he did not run.

I have had a runner go there and run and talked to a few that ran in their programs. No culture mentioned above is legit. They have no "team" mentality. Seems like they switch coaches and it stays the same.

THey dont need a "famous" coach. Heck a good HS coach in Ohio can do better than what they have now.

Get the CC team out from under neath the track team and it will get better.

I think the questioner was wondering why Stifel did not run, as he was OSU's first man, and finished 7th overall in 2016. He was hurt in the spring and had surgery (knee?). Performed fairly well at Pre-nats, so it is a bit of a mystery as to why he did not run.

I have had a runner go there and run and talked to a few that ran in their programs. No culture mentioned above is legit. They have no "team" mentality. Seems like they switch coaches and it stays the same.

This is easy to say but what does it mean?

The team does a pre-season camp.

The team does community service projects, in local schools as well as raking leaves for a local alum that has Parkinson's.

The team (men & women) have a team formal.

Several team members live together in an off-campus house.

Several team members stay in Columbus (in said house) over the summer to train together.

Several team members (men & women together) outside the top 9 traveled to Bloomington on their own on Sunday to support their teammates.

I'm not arguing, I'm asking, what does this mean? I ran D3, we got together for pizza on Friday nights, went to haunted houses, lifted weights (there was no weights as part of regular practice for us). We were successful (2 conference championships and 1 NCAA berth in my 4 years) and our coach was the basketball coach, he coached us on the side.

I don't know what it means to have "team" or "culture" at D1 level. I would think some of the activities listed above would bring the team together. If not, I'm not sure what a coach could implement to bring about the unity some think is missing.

Seems to me they need continuity in the head coach, which is almost always a key to success. The said coach needs to show they can take kids and improve them over what they ran in High School (i.e. a good coach).

The absolutely most frustrating thing for runners is to "work hard" and not get better, regardless of their ability level. As psycho dad said, most runners work hard, but they most also work smart in a strategic way.

Now Stifel didn't start at OSU, but he more-or-less replaces Elswick (4th, 15:24 as a Junior in 2012) and this is a really strong class. One problem (I started to type the problem) is that the next 3 years OSU never really added to this group. We have Landis (walk-on after a solid senior track season, twice injured), Lomong (800 guy likely never a cc guy), and Wood (3rd in state in D3 GOLF!).

Those guys (this year's seniors) had to feel like they were abandoned. We on the outside may never know. Are scholarships being used wrong, or not at all? Are coaches recruiting the wrong guys?

Is there a large block of scholarships open now that this group (Stifel, Leitch, Mandel, Blank, Kunkel) is out of eligibility?

Now Stifel didn't start at OSU, but he more-or-less replaces Elswick (4th, 15:24 as a Junior in 2012) and this is a really strong class. One problem (I started to type the problem) is that the next 3 years OSU never really added to this group. We have Landis (walk-on after a solid senior track season, twice injured), Lomong (800 guy likely never a cc guy), and Wood (3rd in state in D3 GOLF!).

Those guys (this year's seniors) had to feel like they were abandoned. We on the outside may never know. Are scholarships being used wrong, or not at all? Are coaches recruiting the wrong guys?

Is there a large block of scholarships open now that this group (Stifel, Leitch, Mandel, Blank, Kunkel) is out of eligibility?

I agree. That class they got in 2014 was a good class. They haven't been able to match it. Coaching continuity is the number one thing they need. They don't have a ton of scholarship money to give out for XC. OSU has always prioritized sprint and field event scholarships, and the NCAA combines XC and track and field for scholarship purposes. Given that, they will probably never be a team that competes to win conference titles consistently. But with a good coach who sticks around, they could probably be a lot better. But good coaches tend to leave for better situations. Maybe Coach Robinson will stick around, because when Coach Dennis retires the head track and field job would be a good job. But until they have consistency they won't be able to recruit well. They might honestly be better off with a well known HS coach who already lives in the area and so would be unlikely to leave after a couple of years. Who knows? The women's program has certainly had more success, and that should be an indication that things are not hopeless.

Recruiting classes need to be evaluated on more than just the times they ran in high school. A young man here in the eastern part of the state wanted to walk on but was passed over for a boy who ran 3 seconds faster for 1600 but had been running very high mileage and running many races. The boy went on to another school and is flourishing in comparison. Sometimes the great recruiting classes are used up by the time they get to college.

The team definitely isn't great, but they're certainly not helped by having a buffoon (Khadevis) in charge of it all. Believe it or not, he wasn't even wearing any Ohio State gear yesterday... How can there be any kind of "team" feeling when the head coach doesn't even wear school gear? Look at his track record anyway, he jumps from school to school once every other year, he has no interest in actually fostering a "good" OSU team, rather he's just in it to put "OSU coach" in his instagram bio for his "motivational" videos that he tries to trick people into buying. Of course, this SHOULD raise a red flag to a AD/associate AD that actually cared, but Gene Smith and TJ Shelton could not care less.

Also overheard from him at the meet was "if you're looking to run fast, follow me. If you want to run slow, go train with Vergote." WHAT A MORON. He should stick to coaching just mid-distance, and leave cross country training to a REAL coach like Vergote. Khadevis is a glorified crossfit trainer, and should get back to posting dumb motivational videos on instagram.

Sure, you can look at it as 9 teams put 5 in front of OSU's 1, or, you can be more of an optimist and look at it as 2 teams didn't put 5 in front of OSU's 1. Mathking even went a step further and found something good about the Women's program. Not sure what success he's talking about, but at least he has a positive attitude and is trying to find something to build on. No one has died because of the OSU's CC program have they? That's good! They had a team finish and had an official team score! What about that?

The team does community service projects, in local schools as well as raking leaves for a local alum that has Parkinson's.

The team (men & women) have a team formal.

Several team members live in an off-campus house.

Several team members stay in Columbus (in said house) over the summer to train together.

Several team members (men & women together) outside the top 9 traveled to Bloomington on their own on Sunday to support their teammates.

I'm not arguing, I'm asking, what does this mean? I ran D3, we got together for pizza on Friday nights, went to haunted houses, lifted weights (there was no weights as part of regular practice for us). We were successful (2 conference championships and 1 NCAA berth in my 4 years) and our coach was the basketball coach, he coached us on the side.

I don't know what it means to have "team" or "culture" at D1 level. I would think some of the activities listed above would bring the team together. If not, I'm not sure what a coach could implement to bring about the unity some think is missing.

All that is great but they still embarrassed themselves. Maybe the culture has changed. Now the coaching and training needs looked at.

It's going to take a decade to turn things around at OSU. OSU needs to build an entire staff that can recruit distance kids. When I was helping my daughter out looking at schools, there are staffs out there that are so locked in and established that I would have discouraged her from going to OSU or any place that did not have a staff that had been established at least a decade. There needs to be a track record of taking good runners and making them great. OSU takes great runners and makes them bad or good to worse. They need to start with runners that have potential and make them better college runners than they were HS runners. Build from there and then attract Blue Chip talent from inside the state and even nationally and internationally. They are nowhere near deserving to coach top level talent.

Why can't a BGSU, OHIO or Toledo reinstate men's track and field and use all the Scholarships for CC type kids and build a top notch distance squad that can compete at a national level? Who cares about OSU? Why OSU? Why not a MAC school?

Why can't a BGSU, OHIO or Toledo reinstate men's track and field and use all the Scholarships for CC type kids and build a top notch distance squad that can compete at a national level? Who cares about OSU? Why OSU? Why not a MAC school?

Does the president of those schools even know what CC is? Does the AD even know the distance of CC races?

Your point is very valid looking at the schools in top 25 now include N. Arizona (1), BYU (2), Portland (6), Furman (7), S. Utah, Middle Tenn, Iona and Utah State. If those schools can do it any MAC school could IF they put the resources into it.

By the way I noticed looking this up that the OSU women are now ranked 25th.